(NEXSTAR) – “Home Alone” viewers have long wondered how the McCallister family was able to afford the sprawling Chicago-area home where Kevin repeatedly concussed the two criminals who attempted to rob the place on Christmas Eve.
But this week, as if finally awakening from a coma brought on by a brick to the face, “Home Alone” director Christopher Columbus has revealed what Kevin’s parents did for work — a piece of information not disclosed in the movie.
“Back then, [screenwriter John Hughes] and I had a conversation about it, and we decided on what the jobs were,” Columbus said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s “Awards Chatter” podcast.
“We thought the mother, at the time, because we used fashion mannequins in the basement … I do remember having a conversation that she was a very successful fashion designer.”
“The father could’ve, based on John Hughes’ own experience, worked in advertising. But I don’t remember what the father did. I do remember we thought the mother was an extremely successful fashion designer.
Columbus added that the mother’s profession was “probably” the reason the McCallisters had jetted off to Paris — a city known as the fashion capital of the world. (In the film, Kevin’s mother provides a different explanation, saying that her “brother-in-law” was transferred to Paris for work, suggesting that the family was reuniting for the holidays in the City of Lights.)
Columbus also refuted the notion that the family’s patriarch was somehow affiliated with the mafia, as had been speculated online.
“Not organized crime,” he laughed. “Even though there was, at the time, a lot of organized crime in Chicago.”
The McCallister home used for the filming of “Home Alone,” located in Winnetka, Illinois, has become one of the most famous homes in film history since the movie’s release in 1990. Built in 1921, the 9,126-square-foot house — a “legendary holiday dream home,” according to its Coldwell Banker listing — was most recently on the market for $5.25 million.
